Black Run Through With Red
by N'AWLINS
Summary: Unidentifiable pain. Rogue is hurting, and she doesn't know why. That's when the black is run through with red.


DISCLAIMER: the characters and likenesses of Bobby (Robert) Drake, and Rogue, are property of Marvel. as author, i am in no way economically profiting from their use. in other words: they're not mine, and i'm not making squat of this!  
this was written as a sort of release for myself. the thoughts of rogue's character come from experience. this was my way of letting it out, because i am a recovering cutter.  
please read and review.  
N'AWLINS  
  
  
Black Run Through With Red  
  
Pain she could handle.   
  
Pain that came from an identifiable source. Pain you could understand. Pain that had a reason. Pain that only carved a hole in pieces of your heart. Not the whole thing. Pain that might have a solution. Pain that could be abolished.   
  
This wasn't that kind of pain. This was . . . different. It still hurt like hell, but her invulnerability didn't help. Not here. This pain came from somewhere inside. Somewhere that couldn't be reached. Somewhere that couldn't be glossed over. It filled the whole of her being, tainting life with an ever-present scent of hurt. It waited, in the corner of her mind, for her to stop her whirring thoughts. That's when it would take over. Sometimes she could go days without it overwhelming her. But when she was alone with her thoughts, it materialized. Creeping out of the dark to poison her solitude.  
  
She was used to escaping it all, brushing away the humanity that everyone else had to deal with. Her powers made her invincible, to the pain that others inflicted, but her own pain was another story. Alone in her room, she was more vulnerable than when she was being attacked by Magneto. And it scared her, this weakness that she didn't understand. She wasn't prepared. Didn't know how to cope. That's when it all began.  
  
It was another one of those nights. Everyone else had gone out, and she was left alone. Dangerously alone with herself. It chose that night to creep out. Creep out and blanket her conciousness with black. Once again, she didn't know what to do. She climbed the stairs to her room, trying to probe her way through the blackness. But she only managed to bury herself deeper in the void.   
  
Music was an escape. She had numerous cds by different groups, each designated for a different mood. Linkin Park was chosen for the hurt. As the music blared, she tried to sort it out. Sentences that made no sense flew through her mind. 'I just wanna . . . I only need . . .' Nothing seemed to be able to fill in the missing pieces of her heart. Nothing made sense. Her thoughts rambled onwards, a clutter of attempts to make sense of it all. But still she tried. They began to form an on-going circle, always coming back to where they started. Nothing helped. She couldn't release the feeling that consumed her. She felt numb. Crying was all she wanted to do, but it proved impossible. The tears just wouldn't come. The pain was so elusive, and for this reason she wanted it to show. To come out in an understandable form. To take the shape of something she could understand, something she wasn't terrified of. But what? Tears weren't an option anymore.   
  
She looked aruond the room, thinking that maybe if she searched hard enough, she could find it. Her eyes settled on the orange plastic garbage bin. She knew without looking what its contents were: a few chocolate bar wrappers, and glass from the vase that Bobby had knocked over the other night. He had apologized profusely, and she had forgiven him. It wasn't one of her more prized possesions, and Bobby was always breaking something. She had just been glad it wasn't the numerous other things she would've killed him for.  
'Glass.'  
  
The thought came unbidden into her mind. With the darkness hanging over her head like a black coloud, she picked up the plastic bin. She sat for a moment, dazzled by the light playing off the shards of glass. In a sort of trance, she picked up a long, slender shard. She ran her finger along its edges, feeling the smooth cold of the glass.  
It cut.  
  
She pulled her finger away, shocked out of the trance. A small line of red crossed her finger. She watched it trickle down her finger, running over her hand. A strange sort of fascination crept over her, momentarily pushing the black away. She lifted the shard, held it glistening in the light. Her hand moved downwards, and the shard slid across the inside of her arm. For a moment it was as if it had never happened, but then, the small thread of red appeared. She watched it bead, and slid the glass across her arm again, faster this time. The tentative fear dissapeared, replaced with thoughts of how hard to push, and how fast to draw the glass across. The blackness was run through with red. The same red that ran down her arm. She spaced them appropriately, and all in one direction, to deter questions. She could always say she'd scraped herself during training.. As long as they were uniform.  
  
When there was no room left, she stopped. She placed the glass back in the bin, then thought for a moment: What if this happened again? This had released her, brought the pain trickling to the surface. She removed the shard from the bin, and hid it the bottom of her jewelry box. Calmly, free from the black, she walked to the bathroom, methodically taking the hydrogen peroxide and cotton balls from the medicine cabinet. The slight sting of the peroxide was welcome, and she savored the feeling. Her arm would be sore, due to the fact that the damage was self-inflicted, and the cuts would be visible, but she had rid herself of the pain.   
  
The pain that had no reason. The pain that resided somewhere deep within her. The pain that couldn't be reached.  
  
The pain that would come back. 


End file.
